May Allah forgive you and us both, he said.
Some of us answered: Amin.
The guard slammed shut both the little window and the door. The violent sounds were no longer producing their effect. I had become indifferent to them. With time I should not even notice them, and perhaps not even notice the fact that I was shut into a room. But I am still not used to solitude.
Zailachi took out a small pencil and set to work writing on the wall.
What are you writing? I asked him.
I’m writing two lines of a poem by Abou el Qacem Chabbi. He was from Tunis.
And what did he say?
Here’s what he says:
If some day the people decide to live, fate must bend to that desire
There will be no more night when the chains have broken.
Do you understand?
No, but it’s magnificent. What does it mean?
He’s talking about the desire to live.
And what does the desire to live mean?
It means that if a man or a country is enslaved and decides to try and get free, Allah will help. He says: the dawn will respond and the chains will break because men will make it happen.
I see.
Abou el Qacem Chabbi was a great poet, he said. The others were listening attentively.
You’re lucky, I said to Zailachi.
Lucky? Me? He was surprised.
Yes. You’re lucky.
Why?
Because you know how to read and write.
So I can read and write, he said. What good is it? Here I am in this room. Who knows what they’re going to accuse me of? Things I’ve done? Things I haven’t done?
He began again to write on the wall, asking me at the same time as he formed the first letter: What’s this?
I don’t know.
It’s alif, he said. Then he made another letter. And this?
I don’t know. What is it?
That’s ba. And this?
Tsa, I said.
How do you happen to know that one?
Because I’ve always heard people say: alif, el ba, et tsa. And I repeated with him the reading of the three letters.
We can make words out of these three letters, like aboun, baboun, bata, taba.
He stepped away from the wall. Some day I’ll teach you to read and write, he said. You could learn easily.
Do you think it’s easy?
Why not? Aren’t you a man?
I asked him to repeat the verses by the Tunisian poet several times, until I had learned them by heart.
During the afternoon the young man who had been asleep the night before began to pace restlessly, from one end of the room to the other. The rest of us sat quietly, watching him. At one point he seized the piece of bread he had saved from the morning, walked over to the latrine, and crumbled it in his hands, dropping the pieces down the hole. I looked at Zailachi.
It’s his business, he whispered. Let him do what he likes with the bread.
The other two glared angrily at the youth. It seemed to me that if he made one more move, there might easily be a fight.
Why’d you throw the bread down the hole? one of them demanded.
I can do what I want with my bread, he said, glowering.
But you threw away bread, en neama d’Allah!
I tell you I’m free! the other cried.
You’re a pile of shit!
I’m free to do as I like with my bread, and with myself, too!
Yes, but do it when you’re alone.
Suddenly the young man began to pound the wall with his fists, and soon he was butting it with his head. After a few blows he slid to the floor unconscious, his hands and forehead running with blood. Zailachi rose and knocked loudly on the door. The little window opened and a guard said: What is it?
Somebody hurt himself, Zailachi said. He came back and sat down. That’s all we can do, he whispered.
The young man who had been objecting now said: That’s what he gets for doing what he did.
The door opened and two secret policemen entered, accompanied by the uniformed guard. What’s going on in here?
He crumbled up his bread and threw it down the latrine, Zailachi said. And then he started to hit the wall.
And before that, what happened? asked the other secret policeman.
Nothing.
You didn’t quarrel first?
Zailachi looked around at all of us.
No, he said. Ask him when he comes to.
One of the policemen walked over and examined the blood stains on the wall. We’ll see later whether there wasn’t some sort of trouble here before he began to hit himself, he said.
The youth lay quite still, with the blood coming out slowly from his cuts. The men went out and shut the door, leaving the window open.
A quarter of an hour later they came back, bringing two attendants with a stretcher. They lifted the young man onto the canvas and carried him out, still unconscious. There were puddles and smears of blood where he had lain. Again the door shut and the window remained open.
There must be something the matter with him, I said.
Let him do what he likes, said Zailachi. He’s either an alcoholic or he smokes too much kif.
The young man who had been critical added: Or Allah has put a curse on him. Or his father has.
Of course, said the other. You get punished for whatever you do.
We were silent. Our cigarettes had given out. The butts we had thrown away were extremely short. I picked one up, however, and smoked it.
We awoke Monday morning completely exhausted. The two others merely sat, bent over, and Zailachi did not do his morning exercises. In spite of the ugly grey pallor his dark skin had taken on as a result of hunger, he seemed in better condition than the rest of us. I felt only like vomiting, and I was certain that I should, if anyone used the latrine. I thought of that noon I had spent on the docks, when the idea of bread mixed with excrement first flowered in my mind.
The guard threw open the door and called out my name. I stood up, and found that I was dizzy and that my knees were trembling. I said goodbye, even though I had no idea whether I was going to be let out or not. I went along with the guard, and as I climbed the stairs my laceless shoes flapped. Being out of that hateful cell was like being half-free. We went into a room where a large camera was set up in the centre, with a chair in front of it. The guard withdrew, and the photographer told me to sit down. The room was heated. To remember the cell was like remembering being shut into a refrigerator. The man came over to me and arranged my pose. Then he went behind the camera and told me to look into the lens. He took one full-face picture and two profiles. This must be for their records, I thought. He asked my name, and showed me how to push my fingers, one by one, onto the ink-pad and make their marks on a piece of white paper.
A secret policeman entered and began to speak in French and Spanish with the photographer, who was a Moroccan. When the work was finished, the photographer ran his eyes over the paper and asked me if I knew how to sign it. I said no.
Most of them are like that, said the policeman.
Of course, the photographer said.
Next they asked me to push my thumb again into the ink-pad, and make my sign with it at the bottom of the paper. I did not dare ask them what was written on the paper, but I did tell them that I had done nothing.
I have nothing to do with that, said the photographer. Now go down and report to the guard who brought you up here.
Then the secret policeman, speaking in Spanish, asked me what kind of work I did. I told him I had no work.
And so what do you live on, if you have no work?